'Crisis Of Confidence': Local Lawmaker

BURR RIDGE, IL — State Rep. Jim Durkin, a Western Springs Republican, said this week the state government is suffering a "crisis of confidence" when it comes to politicians' ethics. Durkin's Exhibit A: A now-resigned state representative has been charged with making payments to a state senator as part of a bribery scheme. Both are Democrats.

"I can't think of a worse scenario for the collapse of ethics and morals," Durkin, the House Republican leader, said in an interview with Patch at his Burr Ridge office. "That's the kind of thing you watch in a bad Hollywood movie, not at our front door. How did this happen? It's greed."

Durkin, the leader since 2013, is in the minority party in Springfield. His 82nd House District includes all or parts of La Grange, Burr Ridge, Darien, Western Springs, Lemont, Homer Glen and Orland Park.

Starting next week, Durkin said he and other Republicans plan to push a number of changes to ethics laws:

• Increase disclosures — known as statements of economic interest — that state legislators must provide to the public. They already file general statements about their finances, but Durkin said he is pushing for more detail.

• Allow any chief co-sponsor of a bill with five co-sponsors from each party to call it for an up-or-down vote in a "substantive" committee. Republicans have long complained that Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan uses his powers to prevent bills that he opposes from ever seeing the light of day.

• Create mandatory and publicly available documentation of legislators' communications with any state agency about contracts.

• Ban state lawmakers, their spouses and immediate live-in family members from performing paid lobbying work with local government units. Now, only current legislators are barred from lobbying the state government.

Under current law, state lawmakers can start lobbying state government as soon as they leave office. Not long after losing his re-election bid for state Senate in 2018, Chris Nybo, R-Elmhurst, joined the ranks of lobbyists and has been representing Hinsdale in Springfield since last year.

According to the conservative Illinois Policy Institute, Illinois is one of only 11 states that do not have "revolving door" laws barring legislators from lobbying after they leave office. Most states have one- or two-year cooling-off periods after lawmakers' departures.

In the interview, Durkin said many legislators become lobbyists once they leave. He said he was open to the idea of a cooling-off period.

Another way to improve democracy in Illinois, Durkin said, is to end the practice of gerrymandering. That is where the majority party redraws legislative districts to keep or increase its control. Courts have struck down state referendum questions that would remove politics from redistricting. Democrats and Republicans practice gerrymandering in the states they control.

"Both parties have blood on their hands in the growing map debacle," Durkin said. "To the victor go the spoils. That's how you preserve a majority. You draw districts so that they fit into the business model of the Democratic Party."

Durkin noted Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker promised to veto any map that is gerrymandered. "I sincerely hope we can have a fair map," Durkin said.